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Thursday, October 9, 2014

Where we left off

I continued with the brown spotting (only on the toilet paper, not heavy) throughout the day yesterday. My appointment was at 3:45, so my day at work was totally unproductive and incredibly long.

I didn't tell Bobby about the spotting until I called him while I was waiting in the parking lot at the clinic. He was going to join me for the appointment and I wanted to see how soon he would be there. He asked me if I was excited, and I told him I was nervous.

He's already been telling me that I'm thinking too negatively, I just need to relax. Of course, that's easy for him to say, he doesn't have to analyze every single twinge, cramp, muscle stretch, ache, pain, discharge, and feeling that's happening to his body. So yeah...it's pretty easy for him to just relax and trust me to take care of this pregnancy.

Of course, the moment the nurse called my name, he grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes: No matter what, he whispered into my ear and kissed the side of my head. That's been our theme this pregnancy. No matter what, we're still a team and we're going to be fine. No matter if the pregnancy test was a false positive. No matter if the 7 week ultrasound showed an empty sac. No matter if this appointment revealed the spotting to be bad, and the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat. No matter what.

And we almost had our moment. I told Dr. G. about the spotting, and he told me that if I were 8 weeks, they'd do an ultrasound. But since I'm 12 weeks, if he picked up a heartbeat with the doppler, then I wouldn't need an ultrasound and shouldn't worry about it. It was probably just the placenta "digging roots."

I lay on the table, and he spread the gel on my stomach and began moving the doppler. I could hear all sorts of wooshing and whirring, but nothing that sounded like a heartbeat. I stared at Dr. G.'s face, afraid to look at Bobby because I knew Bobby was studying me. He moved the doppler higher and I finally heard a heartbeat, but it was much too slow. I knew it was mine. Dr. G. started over--moving the wand back to the far left of my stomach and scanning to the right again. Finally, right beneath my belly button, I heard a racing heartbeat--at least 2 beats per second that I knew belonged to a tiny baby. Dr. G. breathed a sigh of relief and faced the doppler screen toward me. "175. That's your baby." We listened to it for a minute or so, and I could finally breathe again. "I could only find the heartbeat when you exhaled." Oops. I may have been holding my breath the entire time before he found it.

He pushed around on my belly and said my uterus wasn't protruding yet. He didn't comment either way about whether that was good or bad. He said the spotting probably wasn't much to worry about, I could take it easy if I was worried, but he never really puts restrictions on his patients for rest. He said no sex for a few days to keep from aggravating the cervix, but to be honest, between the nausea, puking, and pooping, sex has already dropped pretty significantly around here. He also gave me the Rhogam shot since I'm O- and I guess they do it early if there's any spotting or bleeding. Just an FYI - Rhogam is a giant needle and it goes in your butt. So that was a fun surprise. Dr. G.'s nurse was supposed to give it to me, but she came back with another nurse, saying she'd never given this shot before, so she was just going to observe and let this other, more experienced nurse do it. The new nurse promised she'd done it thousands of times. It actually didn't hurt that much, but I was leaning against the exam table, looking at Bobby sitting in the patient chair while he watched two nurses shoot up my butt. He enjoyed it waaaay too much.

I'm only up 1.5 pounds but Dr. G. still lectured me about not gaining too much weight--especially in the first trimester. I didn't think that was fair, since that morning when I weighed myself at home I was actually down 2 pounds, so the "gain" was just normal fluctuation. He promised that the baby will "eat first," so even if I skip a meal or two, I'm not going to starve the baby. Apparently I look like I need to skip a meal or two. Thanks, Dr. G. I do really appreciate him. He always reminds me that I can call or text his cell phone at anytime with questions.

For those who have asked, I'm not doing any prenatal scans, like the NT scan or quad scan. Any abnormalities will be discovered at my 20 week ultrasound. There's nothing that I would do with the information any earlier other than worry (and I'm doing PLENTY of that already), and at 20 weeks I would still have time to surround myself with the right doctors and hospital and NICU if anything bad is discovered.

Dr. G. mentioned he was feeling a little "off" during my appointment since he had a 20 week ultrasound for one of his patients that morning that received some not very good news. He got very quiet and blinked a few times. "I've been doing this for 30 years, but that's hard news to deliver that never gets any easier." I like that about him. He's willing to admit he's human and this still affects him.

Bobby was thrilled to hear the heartbeat. He's already telling most of his friends and people at work. I'm excited, but I'm having a hard time sharing the news. I don't know if it's because I know how much it can suck to hear other people's pregnancy announcements, or if I'm just still nervous this is all going to disappear.

Bobby and I had a long discussion last weekend about putting an announcement on Facebook (I'm against it - he wants to, though he said only ONE small update saying we're expecting, not weekly (or hourly) updates about every miniscule detail that no one cares about). It was an interesting conversation and it really revealed how infertility affected us differently. He insisted that "people like us" (infertiles) just get used to pregnancy announcements. Yeah, it sucks to not be pregnant, but other people's announcements don't make it worse. It just continues to suck equally. I disagreed, but I know many of you have suggested similar to Bobby. You're able to separate other people's pregnancies from your own infertility. I guess I'm not like that. I told him he could put something up if he wanted to, but I wasn't going to. I'm hardly on Facebook anyway, and I know he's just excited to share with everyone, so I'm probably going to lose this one.

I guess I can live with that, since I've won in not finding out the gender of the baby until birth. It's about time we do something the old fashioned way.

11 comments:

I think it is so neat for those parents who can wait until birth to find out the gender. Not many amazing surprises in life anymore. Also glad everything was fine. My guess is a little girl. That is high heartbeat :)

Thanks, T. I've been saying girl from the beginning, but I have no idea really. Back in the 80s when I was born (and ultrasound machines weren't great), the hospital I was born in determined gender mostly by heartbeat. I was supposed to be a boy. So who knows!

Phew! So glad that this worked out well, I have to admit I was starting to get nervous with your lack of updates. As for the NT scan, I understand that it wouldn't change anything for you guys...but it's still pretty cool to get an ultrasound and see the wee babe waving around. I don't know if I could have waited all the way to 20 weeks to have a peek!!

I'm so glad everything went so good at your appointment! In with Aramis about the NT scan being an extra opportunity to see the baby. We wouldn't have done anything any differently had they found a problem either, and to be honest, I went into the appointment not really knowing what it was for other than getting an extra u/s! I love how sweet Bobby was before your appointment and your philosophy of sticking together no matter what. Sounds like you have a great doctor too. Also awesome that you will be waiting till birth to find out boy or girl!! So many good things. Please remember to enjoy things throughout this pregnancy and try not to worry about how it will effect other infertiles. I'm not saying to be insensative, not at all, but remember that your story will also inspire others!

Thanks, Amber! I haven't told my girls yet - but I plan to today at practice. There were teacher workdays and no school for half of last week, so I haven't seen them since my appointment. I'm not sure how they'll react, since most of them are really young, and this is only the first or second year I've had them on my team. I don't have super close relationships with many them, but I think they'll still be excited. Some of them may have guessed by my general laziness this year and my bloated belly. I'll be sure to update with their reaction!